Vatican Declares It Takes No Position on Auschwitz Convent Issue

By MARLISE SIMONS, Special to The New York Times

Published: September 5, 1989

ROME, Sept. 4—
Despite growing tension between Catholics and Jews, the Vatican indicated today that Pope John Paul II was determined to take no public position on the dispute over a Carmelite convent at the site of the Auschwitz death camp in Poland.

''The Holy See maintains the position that this is a local problem,'' Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the Vatican spokesman, said today. ''It has taken no side in the discussions now, and it did not four years ago when the issue arose. This is a subject for which others are working and seeking a solution.''

Vatican officials would not confirm reports that Franciszek Cardinal Macharski of Cracow visited Rome last week to discuss the issue with the Pope. The Auschwitz site and the convent lie in Cardinal Marcharski's archdiocese.

Reports circulating among Catholic and Jewish groups said the Pope had urged the Polish prelate to live up to a 1987 agreement to move the nuns.

The remarks by the Pope's spokesman came a day after the Cardinals of Brussels, Paris and Lyons, France, asserted in a strongly worded statement that a 1987 agreement to move the convent must be upheld. In their statement, the Cardinals criticized Poland's Roman Catholic Primate, Jozef Cardinal Glemp, who was quoted in Italian newspapers on Saturday as calling the accord ''offensive,'' saying it should be renegotiated. Cardinal Glemp has also accused Jews of offending Poles and their national sovereignty with protests against the convent. Camp a Symbol of Genocide

Jews object to the presence of the convent at a site they consider the central symbol of the genocide carried out by the Nazis against European Jews. Many Poles say there is nothing offensive about a convent at a site where many Catholics were also killed.

The 1987 accord was negotiated between Jewish representatives and four Cardinals, three of whom issued the statement on Sunday: Albert Cardinal Decourtray of Lyons, Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger of Paris and Godfried Cardinal Danneels of Brussels. The fourth prelate, Cardinal Macharski, has said the church would not honor the accord in the face of ''aggressive'' Jewish demands and protests. The Polish-born Pope has been under pressure to intervene since Feb. 22, when according to the accord, the convent on the perimeter of the Auschwitz site was to have been moved to an interfaith center farther away. The interfaith center has not yet been built.

The Pope's official silence on what the Vatican calls a local issue, even though the dispute now involves church prelates and Jewish representatives in several countries, has been variously interpreted as an attempt to avoid offending his fellow countrymen in Poland, or as an endorsement of the nuns' presence. In either case, both Roman Catholics and Jews have seen his silence as a new source of concern about the relations between the two faiths. Tension Is Denied

Dr. Navarro today emphatically dismissed suggestions that relations were tense. ''The positions of the Holy See and specifically of the Pope regarding relations with Jews and Hebrew people have been very clear,'' he said. ''No one can doubt them. In the 10 years of his pontificate, he has expressed them in many different documents and on many different occasions.''

Asked if the Vatican might eventually have to intervene, Dr. Navarro said: ''I cannot say. The issue is one for the Polish Cardinal who is the authority in his diocese. The church has its laws, and it must act accordingly.''

Priests familiar with Vatican thinking said they thought it highly unlikely that the problem created by the convent had not been discussed at the highest levels of the church.

''In a delicate issue like this, the Polish Cardinal must have spoken with the Vatican,'' said a priest. But he added that in keeping with church law, ''it is also true that the Vatican cannot open or close a convent.''

Under church law, a bishop has wide powers over the running of his diocese, including the appointments of priests and the establishment of convents or monasteries. The Vatican, however, has in the past used its weight by urging a course of action.